"You just think everybody has to become a scholar to read the Bible!"  Occasionally, some feel uneasy with what I’m saying in the previous posts, and some even get offended by it, as if I don’t understand the aims or interests of the various contemplative disciplines, or as if I am denying the deep spiritual needs of people. Maybe I should be offended that they are not even trying to hear what I'm saying.  That way, we can all be offended together.

Growing Up

Or maybe we could both grow up and try listening to each other. If you suddenly discover a box of old letters that your great-grandmother wrote to your mother, how much care will you give in reading them? Would you be at all concerned with what your great-grandmother was trying to say?

The question, here, in these posts on methods for the Text and for the Self, is not “text vs. self”, as though one is important and the other is not. But that is how some people want to frame this:  cold methods vs needs of people—take your pick!  That's not the choice we have to make. The focus is rather, “What's the intention of a biblical text for the sake of people?”

That was Jesus’ concern against the Pharisees. When he invokes the prophet's principle, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” he's not saying people rather than law;  this is a statement of law as intended by God for the sake of people. We've seen this already in a previous post when Paul contrasts letter and spirit in 2Corinthians 3. Paul isn't trashing law; he's trashing how religious people force the law inappropriately against people in a way never intended by the law.

Use Specialty Tools for Specialty Tasks

Self disciplines are specialty tools.  They're not designed to discover what a biblical text is trying to do or say. They're tools for the self, not tools for the text.  This is actually important to think about. If you need to cut a board, you wouldn't grab you wouldn't grab a set of wood carving tools—even if they had gold handles, they wouldn't help you. 

This is a good way to think about self disciplines:  they're specialty tools. They're the fine tools used in finish-work when building a home (very important indeed!); but they're useless for digging the foundation, putting in the floor joists, putting up the walls, and putting on the roof.  The same is true in reverse. You wouldn't use a hammer to make a wood carving. Tool are designed for specific tasks.

That is why we start with the text, and why we don't stop there. The more we start with the text at first (to see what the texts are trying to do), and then engage in self disciplines, the more powerful the results. (1) Textual disciplines and (2) Self disciplines should work hand-in-hand; one should never be used as “a replacement” for the other.

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